I should say I never had the tiniest bit of doubt that the institutionally corrupt Metropolitan Police would let off the security services. Nobody ever is guilty in these things. It was nobody’s fault that an unarmed and unresisting electrician was shot six times in the head as he sat on a tube train. It was nobody’s fault the police subsequently lied about him. It is nobody’s fault that MI5 and MI6 officers were interviewing detainees with freshly mutilated genitals. It was nobody’s fault that, when I blew the whistle on active UK complicity in torture, I was immediately suspended from duty and charged with eighteen allegations of gross misconduct, every one of which was subsequently adjudged to be false. It was nobody’s fault that David Kelly died a horrible, lonely and mysterious death after letting slip the truth – that there were no Iraqi WMD. It was nobody’s fault that hundreds of thousands died and trillions were squandered due to the lies officially published – by nobody’s fault – about WMD.

I have views on this lying exoneration today which are more complex than you might expect. The MI5 and MI6 officers were following policy set out by Tony Blair and Jack Straw, that we should obtain intelligence from torture. It would have been a hollow justice for some junior spooks to be scapegoated while Straw and Blair are walking around as respected international statesman, coining in the money.

Yhe Met investigation was so remarkably “thorough” it did not approach me at any stage, even though I had given obviously relevant evidence in person to the Council of Europe, European Parliament and UK Parliament.

Do watch my evidence to the UK parliament if you have not already done so. Then judge who you believe.

Meanwhile, there is no sign at all that the so-called Gibson Inquiry into UK Complicity in Torture is ever going even to take the lid off the whitewash bucket and get started.

81 Comments

I agree with every word you say, torture, cover ups and lies, all the things they tell us dictators and villainous leaders of other countries do and would have us believe we live in a wonderful candy cotton world where justice and democracy exists. But its all an illusion that many may buy into because they don`t see it or are affected by it personally, but as Thomas Paine quite rightly pointed out,,,,,,,,,,,”He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.” This country has gone firmly down the drain and people like Blair who have taken it there are profiting from the very unjust system they have created, which is why they wanted it there in the first place. Its a disgrace.

I have no doubt about your claims regarding torture, but British complicity in the process goes much further than you claim, though even your alluding to what happened to Jean Charles de Menezes show that you are on the right track.

But why no mention of the murder of parachutist Stephen Hilder, and the apparent one of GMP Chief Constable MIke Todd?

Hilder was killed to take the pressure off the Mossad for what happened just 4 weeks before to German maverick politician Jurgen Möllemann, and Todd was trying to get to the bottom of British extraordinary rendering of Muslim suspects for torture when he was set up for death.

And Kelly was murdered when he took Möllemann’s place as a whistleblower over the illegal war against Saddam and the Iraqi people.

And why don’t you mention who installed and ran the CCTV cameras whose tapes would have shown much more about the 7/7 terrorists, and the killing of Menezes but somehow went missing after the events.

The Metropolitan Police and the British security services were involved, it seems, in a much bigger conspiracy involving the Mossad and its Verint data-mining services, and all these unnecessary murders were just part of it.

Thanks again for that Craig, your witness and speaking out about torture under Blairs,Straws and D.Millibands regime was the first sign for me, having had a closer look on AQfghanisatn before, that the self perpetuating mechanism behind this war on terror is largely brought about by breaches against the human rights act and that we must oppose such form of primitive and secretive justice.
If there has been a change in policy with regards to torture under the condem government, then they should have had the courtesy to look at your case and decide that you have been hounded out of office by the most vile means and that you, theoretically, should be offered ‘a job’ back for your past pains.
Further, your record show that you have been succesfull until that point in time, that you still can offer value for money today, is a given.
Looking at the reality of a neocon lead FCO and their CFI stooges in all three parties, my guess is that you would probably not want to be part of this cabal.
Norfolk is ready for Independents, In flat west Norfolk 65.000 people, mostly conservative voters, have voted against incineration, conservative Norfolk County Council and Ms. Spelmann seemingly want to force it on them, so they will not want to vote Conservative again, its a cauldron here. Its the EDP and NCC versus the people.

It is amusing but true that the “views” counter on the above videos has gone gradually down over the last couple of years. The “views” counter on the first video has fallen from 6,224 to 6,215 even since I posted it! I am NOT claiming a conspiracy here. But do not be downheareted by the very low viewing figures!

Well, corruption in the highest echelons of British power is not surprising. Met investigating complicity in torture, seriously? Uzbek proves says ‘raven does not beak another raven’s eyes’. How those who were supposedly involved in torture been trusted to investigate involvement in torture. This sound like something that Karimov usually arranges to masquerade justice.

Many thanks for this particular blogspot – very very worthwhile and expressed with incredibly deep and utterly justified cynicism. And so far it’s nobody’s fault that so far nobody has yet been held fully to account for the brutal murderous attack on City of London newspaper seller IAN TOMLINSON. Not much it isn’t huh?

You’re a good man, Craig Murray. When future history books are written condemning Blair and Bush and other murderers and torturers (who never physically get their hands dirty) I hope something is said about people like yourself who were (are) prepared to stand up and be counted for the sake of humanity. Thank you. Keep up the invaluable work you do.

Ah, but Craig, doncha see? – no dirt can be allowed to stick to OUR intel services since that would imply that the American intel services are also up to their ears in it, which would never do. No, we have to keep calm and remember our role, that of vassal to the Big Dog. And whipped dogs lie low and say nowt.

The blatant reason why you were informed that it was not wise to put such issues in writing was to maintain deniability, of course they did not want a paper trail of specific reference to information obtained through torture, because should the need arise to implement plausible deniability on the issue a paper trail actually referencing it would be damaging to that. Of course senior ministers knew information was being obtained from torture and given they knew, then the act of turning a blind eye and continuing to receive it absolutely makes them complicit. You end up in a position where a government may be ingratiating itself with our own specifically through its continuous flow of information too it, if we know that that government is systematically torturing to obtain evidence, then in continuing to receive it and obviously in some way or other showing gratitude for that information, not only are we complicit, but I would say that at some point we drive it. I have watched the videos of your evidence and I have no doubt at all regarding your sincerity in what you said, but I see around you a rather profound reluctance to pursue what is blatantly right infront of their noses. I have sincerely no idea how you got through your role as ambassador without going insane.

Funny you should mention Jack Straw, Craig. This morning I was harmlessly listening to the Today programme – as I often do, just to hear what has been happening (that’s fit to broadcast) and the funny, funny things the BBC folk find to say about it. And what do you know? Suddenly there was Jack Straw leading a populist movement against insurance blaggers!

The discussion was as opaque and misleading as one might expect. But, right at the end – and possibly goaded into a precision that he would normally blanket with layers of obfuscation – Straw came out with this gem.

“Everyone is to blame, in a dysfunctional system”.

And there you have the modern politician’s ethical theory, in a nutshell. Of course, as we know from Gilbert and Sullivan, “when everybody’s somebody, then no one’s anybody”. And when we are all guilty, no one is guilty. It’s the system, don’t you see! And no one can be held to blame for the system – not even, apparently, the people who designed it.

@ John Goss
.
Well I am not sure about all history books but certainly that in history books in Uzbekistan (after Karimov of course) Mr Murray will not only be mentioned but also given deserved attention. He did a LOT of good for Uzbeks and unfortunately paid for this with his own health and career. What a hypocrisy. Blair and Bush who removed Saddam (for supposedly being a dictator), removed Mr Murray who was outspoken against another (even worse) dictator.
.
Time will pass and we will eventually learn how many innocent people Karimov and his dogs tortured for US/UK.

Uzbek, you’re right, and so the Uzbekis should be grateful to a man who stood up for their rights as a matter of principle, when former and subsequent diplomatic staff turned a blind eye. The trouble is that the truth of history is shrouded with secrecy until corrupt politicians achieve corrupt ends and the media is controlled by those with the most to lose from being exposed.

I am in tears listening to the Freeemason Leveson circus paving the way to clear the McCanns.Is this the 3 million pound review ? this has nothing to do with little Millie Dowler or her parents, has she been used and abused by Cameron?

If I may Craig I would like to ask your readers to sign the petition for a FULL public inquiry , the McCanns need to be investigated, BUT after reading your article, by whom she asks with deep dismay?

I am listening to ZBC’s pm programme about rendition and it is almost unbelievable that they are still backing the government as the story unravels. I suppose the stakes are very high. The UK reputation is at rock bottom. We are at a point at which by rights the UK US position should collapse as the Soviet Empire collapsed. Instead they just step up the level of lying.

Rob Royston, many thanks for the link to the Lockerbie story. I noted in particular this sentence: ‘Tam Dalyell once said that one has to almost be a “Professor of Lockerbie Studies” to comprehend the detail of this complex story, which has arguably become impenetrable to the public at large’.

The British have always tortured. And they have always claimed to be morally superior while they torture.
Maybe this sense of superiority is why they go about torturing inferior races?

Now a days when torture by others is used as an excuse to invade their countries, slaughter their people, starve their children, strip their women and torture them. Torture that the British carry out is at first denied, when proven it is justified, when deemed unjustifiable it is blamed on a few bad apples who are give a slap on the wrist followed by a pardon and promotion when the media loses interest.

Well the high ups have made it clear, there will be no scape goats or slaps on the wrist for anyone this time around. This time the torturers have nothing at all to fear, how ever minimal.

Craig,your name is being brought up constantly on Coughlin’s atrocious Torygraph article.There are some some truly deranged pro-torture armchair warriors infesting the comments section but a good few souls are fighting the good fight including one Tony Opmoc,latterly of these parts.I urge everyone to go to that site and offer some wise comments to counter the sockpuppets and idiots.
It’s important.
.

In the USA, it seems that the acceptance of various bad acts — kidnapping (rendition), indefinite detention by USA (new statute, NDAA s. 1021), torture, assassination by drone — are ALL becoming so ho-hum that they are in effect accepted. No-one high-up is threatened with prosecution. Indeed, the evident involvement of persons high-up seems to act as a guarantee that the acts are not prosecutable.

Heroes
by Gary Corseri / January 9th, 2012
.
Do not call them “heroes”
if they have done your killing for you.
Say that they have done your bidding;
say they were your “soldiers.”
.
Say that you have trained them well:
They are the oiled machinations of war,
performing as expected.
Refrain from saying “professionals,”
and the usual nonsense about “surgical strikes.”
They were never doctors and nurses
in starched, white linens.
.
The best heroes are dead ones—
mortified and mortared.
They neither complain nor contradict.
They don’t re-live “friendly fire” incidents,
the sonofabitch sargeant-sadist,
nor the rapist in their midst.
They don’t see again
the faces of traumatized children.
Their bones stretch to attention under the sod.
.
The man and woman who will kill and injure
because some fool tells them to
are just little spin-off fools.
No act born of ignorance is heroic.
Heroes are sensible, not imbeciles.
Heroes dispel myths; they neither create
nor perpetuate them.
.
The fully manifested hero,
aware of his power and dignity,
is more than human, is humane.
.
Heroes don’t talk about heroes.
They need no confetti showered in their faces.
They question; they learn; they challenge; they act
according to their own honed principles:
What is truth? for example;
what is honor?
.http://dissidentvoice.org/2012/01/heroes/

Arsalan
Assalamu ‘alaykum
I’m sorry to find you at a low ebb recently. I hope and pray you find some comfort, and I recommend charity as a door to happiness.
Yahoo commentators on the Benyamin Mohamed story read like diaorrhea of anti-Muslim racism.
The British however are not all racist torturers and we don’t want to do a Diane Abbott, however much the publishing of comments is stilted by the MSM against Islam.

PS We should all acknowledge the help given to Craig by Tony Opmoc, often derided here, who uploaded You Tubes.
.
I have often heard it said that Google manipulate the viewing figures of You Tubes, especially when the content does not meet with the approval of the powers-that-be.

Anno,
The reason I haven’t had much time to post lately is the birth of little Arsalan.

When someone says “The British have always tortured”, it doesn’t mean they are accusing each and every citizen of this country of doing that.
It refers to the state.
In the same way, I do not believe Diane Abbot meant anything racist by her comment.
When the empire was built and the countries of brown races colonised.
The way they did so was “divide and rule”.
The colonised called it “whites practicing divide and rule”. This wasn’t the colonised practicing racism against whites, but them describing the racism they suffer from whites.
And by whites we do not mean each and every person reduced pigment in their skin. It refers to the invader.

Yesterday I was overtaken by a brand new anonymous looking white prison van bearing just the words GEOAMEY. I wondered about the identity of those being conveyed within especially knowing what we know about the system.
.

Not having heard of them before, I have just looked them up. Their work – Orwellian words or what?
.
The GEO Group is a leading global provider of rehabilitation detention and treatment services as well as secure transportation, with operations in the United Kingdom (UK), America, Australia and South Africa. The GEO Group services include operation of prisons and other custodial facilities; immigration detention and removal centres; secure escorted transportation; court services; and community re-entry and supervision services. GEO is the largest company providing these services on an international scale, with a worldwide portfolio of approximately 80,000 beds at 116 rehabilitation, detention, and treatment facilities and approximately 60,000 offenders under community supervision and electronic monitoring. In the UK, GEO operates the Harmondsworth Immigration Removal Centre near London and has been selected to operate the Dungavel House Immigration Removal Centre near Glasgow (effective from September 25 2011). GEO stays at the forefront of rehabilitation management by providing innovative approaches to custodial care and rehabilitation of offenders, with modern well-equipped facilities and with operating efficiency underpinned by leading-edge technology.http://www.geoamey.co.uk/about_geoamey/
.
Their chairman
Sir Richard Clive Mottram, GCB (born 23 April 1946) is chairman or board member of a number of private and public sector organisations, many with international links. He is chairman of the board of Amey PLC and of the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl), and a Board member of the International Advisory Board of GardaWorld, Ashridge Business School, and the Ditchley Foundation. He is a Visiting Professor at the London School of Economics and Political Science.
.
He was formerly a British civil servant, who retired in 2007 from his most recent senior post as Permanent Secretary, Intelligence, Security and Resilience in the Cabinet Office.
.
Enough said?

“David Kelly died a horrible, lonely and mysterious death after letting slip the truth – that there were no Iraqi WMD.”

As you very well know this isn’t what Kelly “let slip” to Gilligan. What he let slip was that he didn’t agree with the 45 minutre claim in the dossier. Bending the truth to fit your story weakens it rather than strengthening it.

In America if a black man is found to have committed suicide by shooting himself 6 times in the back of the head it is obvious he spoke to the white police officer about his constitutional rights.

In the UK when someone whose evidence is needed to rubber stamp a war they were planning to do anyway, it is obvious that he was about to say something that isn’t quite a rubber stamp if he is suicided.

Craig, tragically there is plenty of complicity to go round. The corporate media and BBC are complicit, too. Real actual journalists are a rarity. Its not just Straw or Blair that should be unable to look at themselves in the mirror, this applies to a vast number of people in the media, too. In particular, so-called pundits and talk radio propagandists here in the United States. At what point does complicity become being an accessory? Many of these people are there.

Anyone recollect?
Kelly on the day which he went missing, had called a journalist in US from a phone box, who was this journalist? We all fool ourselves by accepting the role of “Media” and their “mission” in a democracy.

The biggest fall out of the the Gilligan affair was the uncovering of the SIS assets in zioBBC, these had to blow their cover and come out fighting for Blair the warmonger/money grabber; rubbishing Gilligan, etc.

This is of course forthright evidence that demonstrates how the British intelligence services make use of information obtained by torture to generate false intelligence. False intelligence we know historically can be used as the stimulant, influence and incentive for mass murder.
.
When President Bush spoke of “removing the torture and rape rooms” in Iraq, Craig wrote, “.. systematic torture and rape appear to be treated as peccadilloes, not to effect the relationship and to be downplayed in the international fora..” – that caused storm clouds to loom in the corridors of British power.
.
Craig was mentally tortured by those who tried hard to undermine his credibility. I strongly believe he only survived humiliation, public shredding of his personal life, health problems undoubtedly brought on by stress and his virtual self-immolation over the death of the young Jamal Mirsaidov,, by the support of Nadira.
.
It is to her I offer my sincere thanks for strengthening his fight for survival, gifting us with his presence today.
.

Just watched the videos, Craig – have always enjoyed your writing, but have never seen these before. You were excellent. Who said “the best lack all conviction”?

Anyway, excuse my unfamiliarity with politicians, if indeed that’s what they were, but who exactly were the men asking the questions? Who especially was the sleazy younger dude on the left who seemed passionately intent on tripping you up?

I have deduced from the transcript that native agents report to their local handlers in the American embassy. The American embassy then transmits intelligence to Washington (CIA) who then after evaluation and intelligence sharing protocals transmit the intelligence to MI6 and then after another evaluation MI6 retransmitS the intelligence to the British embassy, copied to the British ambassador.
.
The British embassy in Iran is now closed although the FCO website is still being updated:
.http://ukiniran.fco.gov.uk/en/news/?view=News&id=713504082
.
Intelligence would have been received by Washington (CIA) from the British embassy in Iran indicated by the AM Data Tone encrypted streams via satellite communications in the megahertz or gigaherz bands or both. I now wonder which embassy is being used to transmit intelligence from Iran to Washington, presumably the French enbassy.

Arsalan
Congratulations on the birth of your son.
‘This wasn’t the colonised practicing racism against whites, but them describing the racism they suffer from whites.’
In my opinion Diane Abbott’s remarks were definitely racist. Collective prejudice against ‘the other’ is a group of people sheltering eachother from their own individual prejudice. Two wrongs don’t make a right. That’s what Ms Abbott was doing.
Mark Golding
Thanks first to Allah for giving Craig Nadirah, and second to Nadirah for supporting him in making this pivotal stand against UK complicity in torture. Between Thatcher’s premiership and Blair’s dictatorship there was a political discussion about whether a politician’s job was to serve National self-interest only, or to be involved in a wider vision. Blair then narrowed it down to narrow self-interest in order to create the political vacuum which would give birth to Global New Order Z-word freemasonism.
All that it takes ( big all, mind ) to defeat GNZFM is to re-define the job of politics back to its original scope, larger than narrow national self-interest. The genie is out of the bottle, but I am absolutely certain that it is puttableback inagain same as the whiskers on my chinagain. This issue that Craig is leading the discussion in is massively important. The BBC is playing it down big time. I would expect to see demonstrations and counter-demonstrations about it soon. Raw nationalism and counternationalism against rational humanitarianism.
If we lose this battle this time we are doomed as humans.

Health and happiness to young Arsalan and his parents, may he grow up to be a good son.
To the nasty video that shows US soldiers acting to spoil the peace negotiations.
My thanks to the Taliban for keeping their head saying that this will not stop the talking, they seem to see the significants of not over reacting.

These bad soldiers could most likely have been influenced by a superior, but the leary laughing and gestures looks suspiciously like they have been taken something growing in the fields of Afghanistan.
It has been a big problem and our generals mentioning that one should overlook drug taking in a war zone, because of the stress and and and, must be prepared that drug taking frontline troops can do some embarrassing things at the wrong time.

Yes welcome to this world baby Arsalan. We have not given you a very good inheritance sadly.
.
Let us not forget young Bradley Manning waking up today and facing a court martial. Nor young Richard O’Dwyer who is facing extradition to the evil M-Pyre as I call it. What can we do to assist these young men?
.
On 30 September 2006 the US Senate unanimously ratified the treaty. British Home Secretary John Reid said he was “delighted” that Baroness Scotland’s visit to the US over the summer succeeded in getting Senate agreement. John Reid: “The treaty is an important measure in our fight against serious international crime”.
.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extradition_Act_2003

I thought that this was a spoof but apparently not. Frank Gardner relives the Adventures of Tintin.
.
Tintin’s Colonial Adventures
Posted by margo on January 13, 2012, 7:23 am

I accept I’m being facetious, but during this era of heightened tension, extra-judicial assassinations and unfolding events in the Middle East – surely a busy time for any serious journalist – it’s curious that the BBC’s security correspondent found the time to star in Frank Gardner’s TinTin adventures.
.
He gets to drive through the ancien empire and across the colonies in a snazzy vintage car – it must have been fun – I guess I’m being mean
.
Tintin was his hero, says Gardner. Ah yes. Herge’s Tintin au Congo , in particular, is revealed as a racist, condescending document that shines a light into the colonial mindset. Herge’s employer, Wallez, decided the Belgian youth needed to know more about the values of colonialism. Hergé was instructed to show Belgium how the Congolese natives were introduced to the shining light of civilisation. From a review of that book: “Throughout [Tintin au Congo] we will witness further displays of Colonialism. Tintin shows a condescending – even despising attitude towards the natives. In 1954, as Hergé re-edits the story this attitude would soften, but not disappear.”
.http://members5.boardhost.com/medialens/msg/1326439427.html includes some good graphics.
.
Margo is South African so I assume the programme, which was broadcast here last October, has just been shown in S Africa.

How many days ago was Correra warning about terrrrrist attacks in Kenya?
Now it is Bangkok.
.
BREAKING NEWS:US embassy in Thailand warns citizens foreign terrorists may be planning attacks on tourists in Bangkok
.
Keep the wheels grinding ZBC!

Re. Arsalan at 07:04pm on 12.1.12.
.
First of all, lots of mubarak on the brith of your son, Arsalan. Brilliant and happy news! I’m sure that by the time he is three, inshallah, you will have initiated him into the joys of the culinary arts of fish disshes.
.
I completely agree with your post; this is more-or-less precisely what I was arguing on the ‘Diane Abbott’ thread.

Congratulations on your son’s birth.May he live in happier times. As to this country’s record on torture who followed the trial of the Kenyans a few months ago? Castration ,bottles shoved up vaginas as well as commonplace near death beatings.All this just 50 or so years ago.I recommend Richard Gott’s Britain’s Empire published by Verso if people want an overview.Bliar & Straw are two sick f*****s.Stay sane Craig ,it is important to hear how it really is.By the way when attempting to listen to your testimony my computer kept on claiming there was a breakdown!! anyone else experience anything similiar?

Craig, I also had no doubt that the Metropolitan Police would let off the security services.
.
All the cases of UK complicity in torture should be fully investigated. The case of the torture in Pakistan of Salahuddin Amin is key.
.Salahuddin Amin was despatched back to the UK by the Pakistan authorities (after a 10 month detention in Pakistan where he was tortured by the Pakistan SIS with the connivance of the UK spooks), arriving on on 8th February 2005, the very same day that Mohammed Sidique Khan & Shehzad Tanweer arrived back in the UK from Pakistan.
.
The testimony that Salahuddin Amin relayed to the Metropolitan Police subsequent to his immediate arrest upon arrival on 8 Feb 2005 was used, alongside the evidence from US al-Qaida ‘supergrass’ Mohammed Junaid Babar to secure the ‘fertiliser plot’ convictions.
.
The ‘fertiliser plot’ trial was one of the longest in UK criminal history (Jan 2006 to May 2007), however a major tenet of prosecution evidence was based on evidence received following (UK complicit) torture (albeit undertaken in Pakistan).
.
As in all cases of evidence ‘obtained‘ from torture, it is utilised to enact a pre-written script.
.
.
Thank you Craig, for your efforts in highlighting again the ‘UK complicity in torture’ subject.

ROMNEY’S ISRAELI HANDLER – Orit Gadiesh, former “War Room” assistant to Ezer Weizman and Moshe Dayan, is the daughter of Israeli Brigadier General Falk Gadiesh (born Falk Gruenfeld, Berlin, 1921) and his Ukrainian-born wife. Gadiesh is chairman of the management consulting firm Bain & Company, the parent company of Bain Capital, and was the company’s managing director under CEO Mitt Romney in 1992.

Interesting post, wish there were more like it.
People are so asleep that incredible events are washed off as easily as rain drops on your jacket.
I think this whole system could be upgraded, starting by eliminating such ideas as kings and queen, Lords etc. All pure rubbish. There is no such thing as “good old traditions” they should be updated all the time.
A better world is possible and we have to make it so together.

Ken Clarke is ready to betray 800 years of British justice
The security and justice green paper threatens to deprive us of one of the vital traditions of common law

.

Henry Porter The Observer, Sunday 15 January 2012
.
Four of the earliest surviving copies of the Magna Carta on display at the Bodleian library, Oxford. Photograph: Martin Argles for the Guardian
.
First, the UK Bill of Rights Commission: has anyone seen it? Are we quite sure it exists in corporeal form? Do we know where its members meet? How come people are forming the impression that the UK Bill of Rights Commission is doing rather less for the public good than a home counties bridge party?
.
These questions haunt me because Kenneth Clarke, the secretary of state for justice, the man who set up the commission last spring to investigate a new bill of rights – no doubt with half an eye on the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta in 2015 – is also responsible for the justice and security green paper, which threatens to deprive us of one of the vital traditions of common law, guaranteed by Magna Carta. You could dignify this with the word irony, but it is just the usual story of politics and hypocrisy. While pacifying those who worry about liberty with a footling commission, composed largely of lawyers from left and right, who cancel each other out, Clarke proposes a vast extension of secrecy in the civil courts and inquests, which will suppress evidence of corruption and negligence in high places, as well as reduce access to justice and the public’s right to know.
.
Sometimes, I wonder if Clarke, who is a QC, read the paper before it was published last autumn, because it is arguably more menacing to our legal traditions than anything dreamed up by his predecessor, Jack Straw. But he must have read it. Indeed, the high commands of the major parties have all read and apparently support the proposals that, in the case of the Liberal Democrats, amount to a historic betrayal of the principles of open justice.
.
Apart from the Tory MP David Davis, there is barely a whisper of opposition to the shoddy, self-serving and manifestly illiberal measures, which Clarke claims will improve executive accountability and provide “a court system equipped to deal with sensitive material and intelligence services that are able to get on with their job”.
.
There you have the lies summarised. Now let’s look at what the proposals will actually mean.
.
The most important point is that Clarke will provide a magic cloak of protection for any minister or government agency that wishes to cover up a wrong, most significantly for members of the intelligence services. Under his law, evidence that British officials were involved in the rendition and torture of British resident Binyam Mohammed could have been suppressed. Evidence that emerged last autumn that British spies arranged the rendition of two Libyan opposition figures to Gaddafi’s people for torture may not, if Clarke gets his way, be heard in an open British court, because the minister will be able to declare the material “sensitive” or “against the public interest”.
.
Those are vague concepts. Anything can be thus defined: the death of someone in police custody, the contamination resulting from a nuclear accident, the details of a government contract, or security lapses in a government laboratory, to say little of the matter of gentlemen with Muslim names being conveyed to some fetid, bloodstained cellar. Executive accountability will be reduced, not improved.
.
Once Clarke’s apparatus is in place, it is likely to encourage a sense of immunity in officials, possibly the idea that they are above the law. The result will be a worse-run country, where the state grows incrementally more heedless and irresponsible – exactly the argument I made against, among other things, Jack Straw’s proposal for secret inquests.
.
Over the last six years, I have stressed the dangers of the tendency of illiberal practices to spread through the system, after being introduced to deal with one discrete issue. Following controversy over the deportation of terror suspects, Labour established the Special Immigration Appeals Commission and introduced the “closed material procedure”, which allowed evidence to be withheld from the individual and his legal team. Instead, it was revealed to a special advocate who supposedly protected the individual’s interests, yet wasn’t allowed any contact with him or his lawyers.
.
This shameful arrangement spread quickly. In numerous other contexts, the state used the “sensitive” label to make sure that evidence was not disclosed to the other party. Clarke’s innovations will mean that closed material procedures and special advocates will become much more common in civil courts and inquests, denying the public knowledge of the misbehaviour and mistakes of officials – the people we pay for with our taxes. Our servants! It is retrograde and condescending in the extreme, but, worse still, it breaks the promise in Magna Carta, which says: “To no man will we sell, delay or deny justice.”
.

Dinah Rose QC summarised the obvious advantage to ministers in her Atkin Memorial lecture last year. The legislation would, she said, “permit courts to try common law claims for damages using a closed material procedure, whenever a government minister, who is, of course, likely to be party to the action, decides that disclosure of particular material would be damaging to national security”.
.
We are following America, where the state secrets privilege results in the exclusion of evidence from the proceedings simply on the basis of affidavits delivered to a court by the government, and this is going to make life very difficult for serious journalism in Britain. A response to the green paper from Guardian News and Media, owners of this newspaper, says Clarke’s proposal would have a serious impact on the judicial process, court reporting and public interest journalism. Closed hearings, secret evidence and secret pleadings and judgments will result in the indefinite removal of information from the public domain.
.
The green paper is designed almost shamelessly to prevent information concerning such things as British involvement in Binyam Mohammed’s torture reaching us. That motive tells you all you need to know about the rottenness of the proposal and why we should follow the example of the many special advocates who have voiced their opposition.
.
Clarke’s fall-back position will probably be to guarantee the intelligence services immunity from scrutiny in open court, but given the absolute lack of opposition in Parliament he may get everything he wants, in which case we will all be worse off.
.
Which brings me to the UK Bill of Rights Commission and my conviction that if we are to have a new bill of rights, it is the public who must wrest this process from the lawyers, academics and former civil servants, working away to boost the credentials of politicians at the next election. Just as capitalism needs reform, so do the mechanisms that guarantee freedom, scrutiny and accountability. The English gave Magna Carta to the world 800 years ago; now we need to update it properly.

‘Piracy’ student loses US extradition battle over copyright infringement
.
TVShack’s Richard O’Dwyer faces 10 years in jail for operating website US authorities say hosts links to copyrighted material
.
A judge ruled on Friday that a 23-year-old student can be extradited to the United States for running a website posting links to pirated TV shows and films, despite significant doubts over whether such sites break any UK laws.
.
The ruling threw Britain’s contentious extradition treaty with the US, which critics allege is greatly biased against UK nationals fighting their removal to America, under further scrutiny. It came just hours after a businessman from Kent lost an appeal against the decision that he should be sent for trial in Texas for allegedly plotting to send missile components to Iran.
…….http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/2012/jan/13/piracy-student-loses-us-extradition

Alistair Burt has been in Iraq discussing Saddam’s human rights record with one of the members of the USUKIs stooge government.
.
This is what we have brought in human rights. This piece should be read and memorized by Burt.

Monday 16 January 2012
.
Iraqi demonstrators hold pictures of missing relatives during a weekly protest against corruption. Photograph: Ali Al-Saadi/AFP/Getty Images
.
The walls of Um Hussein’s living room in Baghdad are hung with the portraits of her missing sons. There are four of them, and each picture frame is decorated with plastic roses and green ribbons as an improvised wreath for the dead.
.
Um Hussein had six children. Her eldest son was killed by Sunni insurgents in 2005, when they took control of the neighbourhood. Three of her remaining sons were kidnapped by a Shia militia group when they left the neighbourhood to find work. They were never seen again.
.
She now lives with the rest of her family – a daughter, her last son, Yassir, and half a dozen orphaned grandchildren – in a tiny two-room apartment where the stink of sewage and cooking oil seeps through a thin curtain that separates the kitchen from the living room.
.
Um Hussein looks to be in her 60s and has one milky white eye. She is often confused and talks ramblingly about the young men in the portraits as if they are alive, then shouts at her daughter to bring tea. She told the Guardian how she had to fight to release Yassir from jail.
.
Yassir was detained in 2007. For three years she heard nothing of him and assumed he was dead like his brothers. Then one day she took a phone call from an officer who said she could go to visit him if she paid a bribe. She borrowed the money from her neighbour and set off for the prison.

“We waited until they brought him,” she said. “His hands and legs were tied in metal chains like a criminal. I didn’t know him from the torture. He wasn’t my son, he was someone else. I cried: ‘Your mother dies for you, my dear son.’ I picked dirt from the floor and smacked it on my head. They dragged me out and wouldn’t let me see him again.
.
“I have lost four. I told them I wouldn’t lose this one.”
.
/…

What saddens me about the Iraq type of situation is that at base, it is Iraqi people killing Iraqi people. Of course, the USA/UK bears enormous responbility for what they did over a period of years and there are no doubt people setting off bombs just to stoke sectarian hatred and violence. I read recently that it is alleged that Israel is supplying the Sunni fundamentalist paramilitary in south-eatern Iran to attack the Iranian regime. So all this goes on, as one would expect. But ultimately, we have to face the fact that Arab people are torturing and killing Arab people (and we can guess what will happen to the Alawites in Syria when the regime there falls). The Christians, who’d been there since the Year Dot, nearly all ran away from Iraq after 2003 because they were being killed by other Iraqis. Saudi Arabia versus Iran is the fixture, with NATO as coach and ref. A bloody game with a trophy of skulls.